Selling Snake Oil

Working in health and fitness there are countless hacks, I like to call them snake oil, to create success in the short-term and occasionally beyond.  

The real secret is finding out what snake oil actually produces results.  Today will be about hacks that have worked for me and those that I work with when it comes to improving body composition.  Feel free to disagree but these methods are backed by life’s greatest teacher, experience.   

Drink lemon water first thing in the morning

I picked this one up from Genavix Wellness.  The promises were based around aiding digestion and promoting hydration after sleep.  While there are plenty of other claims for lemon water, I’ll leave it at those two to start.    

Apple cider vinegar - One to two tsp. daily 

This one came from How Not to Diet by Michael Greger.  The benefits of apple cider vinegar are well-documented.  Its effects on the body’s response to food is the reason I gave it a shot.  I tend to put a teaspoon of ACV into my water bottle in the morning and evening. Blunting the spike in blood sugar from eating can help sustain energy and improve body composition over the long-term.  There are plenty of other potential benefits but for that, do your own reading or try it yourself.   

Avoid training to failure 

This one is strictly experiential.  I’ve seen plenty of potential benefits to training to exhaustion.  However, the appetite-inducing fatigue that comes with it has derailed many of my training programs.  For the sake of clear-headed decisions, I tend to avoid training to fatigue while chasing body composition goals.  My body is usually under enough stress in a caloric deficit that additional training stress can only hurt, not help.   

Shorten up eating windows

This doesn’t have to be extreme. For me, limiting my eating window to 14 hours has allowed me the best results.   If my fast lasts for less than 10 hours, I usually pay for it in the form of poor digestion, lethargy or increased appetite for no good reason.   

Supplement vitamin D

So many reasons for this, most recently being the potential effects Vitamin D had on folks with COVID-19.  Aside from that, it can help with a multitude of bodily functions that help drive improved body composition.   

Five habits that I’ve found to help me and those that I work with.  Try them for yourself if you haven’t already!